Welcome back to my life dear readers! It has been close to a year since I’ve updated this blog.

Most of you are aware already, but in case I have readers who aren’t, I no longer live in Edmundston, NB; I don’t work at the mill anymore and have since moved away and I am not even a little bit sad about it!

My employment in the states ended and at first it was a major blow, I was really sad and felt a little worthless to be honest. I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I moved back home with my parents, Jake and Iza in tow and was going to sink my teeth into professional job hunting.

I had a couple of interviews and things were going ok.. I don’t know what I would have done if my parents hadn’t welcomed me back home with such open arms and support. Especially when I was bringing two dogs along! Thankfully Zeke (my family dog) got along great with Jake and Iza.

This picture’s a little bit old, but still cute

Even though I had had a couple of interviews that felt like they’d gone well I didn’t land a permanent position. So I decided, almost on a whim, to go back to school.

It was getting to the point where I couldn’t afford to be unemployed anymore, what with car payments; student loan payments; and regular bills continuing to come in, so going back to school meant putting my loan payments on pause while I studied and hopefully making me more employable after graduating with a Masters Degree.

All of this brings me to now, I’m living in Halifax, was accepted to Dalhousie University to take my Masters in Environmental Engineering (with funding!) and I couldn’t be happier. It feels amazing to be studying something that I actually enjoy and have voluntarily signed up for. It’s so much easier to find motivation when it’s something you’re passionate about. My research project is on energy reductions in water treatment, so given that I’m a giant environmentalist and very interested in the world’s energy predicament this masters program has got me super excited.

I’ll be focussing on UV treatment of water, both drinking and wastewater, trying to reduce the amount of energy that process requires. So far I’ve got relationships with Halifax Water set up and I’m told I’ll be working with Cape Breton’s water commission as well! All of this gets me so pumped.

Though leaving Edmundston after the position at the mill didn’t work out seemed devastating at the moment, it was certainly a blessing in disguise (read: blessings aren’t really a thing, this is purely for expressional purposes). I’m living in a new, awesome city that I’ve always liked; Jeff lives here too (he’s taking a second degree at Dal as well!); my brother lives here; AND I’m doing research in a field that excites me.

OH! And my room mate also has a puppy! That means there are three dogs in my house. Three. Two super big ones, and one super small one. His name is Apollo and the three of them get along so well.

Small world story: Jamie (the room mate) ended up living with me because he lived with Jeff in PEI when Jeff first moved from Ontario! So Jeff knew Jamie was coming to Halifax and needed a place to live and told us to talk to each other.
Jamie’s awesome; it’s a great thing when your roommate isn’t just someone who helps pay rent and instead is a friend eh?

Most of you probably already know that I actually adopted two puppies from a refuge in Madawaska County in Edmundston! Their names are Iza and Jake, they’re German Shepherd puppies and are brother and sister. I love them.

I’ve had a lot of people say things like, “Two dogs! That’s a lot of work!” or even “Why did you get two!?”. Well my friends, I work at least 8 hours a day, Monday-Friday, and so I didn’t really want to leave a puppy home alone for that long; I’ve wanted to have two dogs for the LONGEST time; and they’re brother and sister! They were just begging to be adopted together. All things considered together, how could I NOT adopt two? On top of that, the amount of work it takes to train two puppies is definitely not twice as much as one. I would hardly even call it much harder than one puppy. You have to do the exact same things for each dog… you feed them at the same time, you take them outside to use the bathroom at the same time, you pick up their poops the same way (so what if there are two rather than one? What’s that take.. an extra 15 seconds?). The ONE thing I can imagine would count as “more work” is trying to discipline them both when they do something wrong. I.e. if Iza’s chewing on something she’s not supposed to, she gets scolded; then if Jake decides to chew something else, he gets scolded. So yes.. maybe there is ‘more training’ to do, BUT do not overlook the fact that they see the other one being scolded and so typically when one gets scolded for something, the other one learns from it too. They’re also best friends and love to play with each other and it’s adorable. WEOO Puppies!

In other news, I moved into a new house! I wanted out of the apartment I was in because it was way too loud and didn’t have a yard for the dogs. It was fine when they were small and young, but big dogs can’t stay in an apartment like that. They needed room to run around, not to mention me not wanting to clean up their poop and pee so frequently from off of the balcony. The apartment was loud because it was downtown, right beside a Greco Pizza, so we heard their bomb cars coming and going at all hours of the night to do their deliveries, as well as the transfer trucks coming in the wee hours of the morning to deliver the stock for them. PLUS the dumpster sized garbage trucks that would come to empty the garbages, and they’re LOUD. Jeff and I literally slept with ear plugs in. So the new house takes care of that problem! It’s further away from work, but it’s not loud anymore, it’s in a nice neighbourhood with lots of green things versus pavement.

A guy I graduated with also works at the mill with me and he’s moved into the house too so now I have a roommate and someone to talk to, so the whole…

Home alone, trying to find something to do

has been slightly improved! We still sort of do our own things, since he likes sports and gambling and I’m not particularly adept at either… but it’s still great to have a friend around.

We’re both actually going back to Fredericton this weekend! I’m driving the two of us and the dogs there Friday afternoon. Pumped for the split in gas cost! Win-win situations are the best.
He’s going to visit friends and… I think there’s something else he was planning on doing.. now I feel like a bad friend for not remembering.
I’m also going to visit friends, but the frosh week concert is that weekend too and it’s DRAGONETTE! I’m so fucking excited.

Martina of Dragonette

My wonderful friend Natalie said we (me and the dogs) can stay with her which is nice since another friend had planned on letting me stay but his landlord vetoed it because of the dogs.. blurg.

OH WELL! Everything’s working out nicely and life is hanging out on the positive side of the spectrum 🙂
If only I got to see Jeff a little more often, then life would be pretty close to perfect. (He left Saturday morning for school to take his second degree).

I hope the update left you all feeling a little more filled in on my life and a little more intrigued in the idea of having two dogs around hahhaha
Thanks for reading!

It has almost been nine months since the last time I wrote. I can’t really believe that this blog fell to the wayside so easily… I could’ve made a baby in the same amount of time.

I last wrote about being back in Fredericton and Jeff being with me and not in Regina; that seems like a past era of my life now. Since going back to Fredericton, Jeff and I lived happily while I finished my degree (in chemical engineering for those not that close to me) and Jeff worked through the days so that he didn’t go crazy trying to figure out what to do during the day. That problem may have reared its ugly head again though, more on that later.

Christmas quickly came and with my very meagre exam schedule I had a lot of time off! Jeff drove to Ontario to be with his family for as much time as he could over the break. After I wrote my exams I flew out there to meet them as well! We spent a few weeks there and then drove home to Charlottetown to spend Christmas with my family too. It was a big step in our relationship for Jeff to be away from his family for Christmas and with mine, and as far as things on my side go, spending the break at my house and meeting all of my family. All in all it was a great vacation! There were gifts given, food eaten, fights had, resolutions found, and wine drank. I couldn’t have asked for a whole lot more.

A quick breakdown I know, but that sums it up pretty well I think! I guess at some point during the break was our anniversary as well. But we don’t really know the date and it’s an anniversary of time spent dating so it’s not that crucial yet anyway right?

After Christmas I continued my studies and Jeff kept working. I was focussing most of my efforts on my Plant Design course which involves the complete design of a chemical plant for a client. It’s a full year course (I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it here before or not) in which you’re grouped into teams and each team has a client for whom they have to take their idea, technology, or potential new method and design a facility to make it work! Our team designed a new form of biodiesel production plant using a new technology from an Atlantic Canadian company. In a nutshell we took a by-product that normally gets created and used the technology to shift it into its plasma state and then pyrolyzed it to produce heat and energy to be reused in the overall process!
The whole course was a royal pain in the ass, took up all of my time, and usually led us into dead ends and unknown territory; but hey! I’m told that that’s the point. I will admit that I learned a LOT from it.

BioDiesel Fuel

My plant design group at the Iron Ring Ceremony

Oh yeah! I got my iron ring too.. probably should’ve mentioned that.

Iron Ring!

Fast forwarding again, at the end of the year Jeff went back to Ontario alone because, again, I had an exam to write, but mostly because his niece was due to be born! So I went home for a bit, went back to Fredericton, wrote my exam, and flew out afterwards (same as at Christmas time).
I can’t get enough of AJ (Jeff’s nephew, in case you’ve forgotten), he just turned 3 and he’s the absolute best. On top of that was the new baby that Jeff went out early to welcome to the world! Drew was born almost exactly when she was due and is so cute. She’s perfectly well behaved, already has a full head of hair, and has (though not until after we left Ontario) started smiling!

Colouring with my favourite little man

Drew!

I always have a great time seeing Jeff’s parents and going to Ontario to visit his family is always looked forward to. His brother and sister-in-law (AJ and Drew’s parents) are some of the kindest people I’ve met. I should probably consider myself lucky to have that sort of relationship with my boyfriend’s family, though to be honest all that I have to really compare it to is one bad example and the movies, so I don’t really know. Either way seeing Jeff’s family makes me happy every time.

We drove from Ontario to Fredericton, stopping in Edmundston to check out the apartment we’d just started renting (more on that in a bit as well). I graduated with a bachelor’s in chemical engineering with Jeff, my parents, and my grandmother all there cheering me on. I’m getting a little worked up now just thinking about how lucky I am to have had people like that smiling at me as I accomplished one of my life goals.

Parents and Mama.. we were all so photogenic that day….

After graduation, with the help of my parents and Jeff (my grandmother waited back in Fredericton) all of my belongings, as well as Jeff’s, were moved to Edmundston. Now the reason we’ve moved to Edmundston is because I’ve landed a job as a Process Engineer at Twin Rivers Paper in Madawaska, Maine which is only minutes from Edmundston, NB.

Since I’ve sort of started my ‘real’ life, live relatively far from home (a 7 hour drive), and need to cross the border every day I actually bought my first car! A bit scary, but it was a pretty good deal at 0% financing so I decided to go ahead and make my first big purchase! As it turns out, I couldn’t be much happier with my new Nissan!

My new car!

Jeff and I both just got new computers too actually. I was giving myself a graduation present, and since my old laptop was 5 years old I figured a new computer would probably be a good investment. I shopped around for a long time trying to find the right one and ended up with a new HP Pavilion dv6. Since I was giving myself a present and because I was starting a pretty good job soon I decided to go all out and get a really good computer rather than get an ok one and save a few dollars. Turns out it was on sale for a great price and Jeff got one too!

Now I’m here in Edmundston, working in Maine, living with Jeff.. I really can’t complain a whole lot. Having a friend or two my age at work wouldn’t be turned away, but if that’s the only issue then I can certainly live with it for some time. This is where Jeff going crazy trying to find something to do sort of comes back into play again. He doesn’t currently have work here in Edmundston and is going a little nuts trying to find things to do during the day while I’m at work and neither of us know anyone in the city. Have any suggestions for activities?

That’s all for now I guess! I’ll update again soon. I have the time to do it now so I don’t have much of an excuse not to.
Hope you’re all great!